By Jim Russell | Special to The Republican SOUTH HADLEY — Workplace abuse spanning more than a decade and failures to address it are among claims at the heart of a whistleblower lawsuit filed by a municipal light department employee against the agency’s long-serving manager Wayne Doerpholz, engineer Andy Orr, the department itself and the board of commissioners. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District
By ERIC GOLDSCHEIDER For the Gazette A South Hadley Electric Light Department electrician is suing his employer for $750,000 under a federal whistleblower law, arguing that the municipal utility’s manager retaliated against him for going to police after another employee verbally and physically assaulted him in December 2013. The complaint, filed in federal court in Springfield by Robert Blasko Jr., also names the SHELD board
By K.C. Myers | Cape Cod Times PROVINCETOWN — Taxpayers will owe former Police Chief Jeff Jaran $512,797, as the town has signed an agreement with him to stop any further appeals and lawsuits related to his dismissal. Town officials agreed to pay the former chief, who was fired in December 2013, about $150,000 so he would give up any further options to sue the
By KC Meyers | Cape Cod Times PROVINCETOWN — Former Town Manager Sharon Lynn went against town counsel’s advice and granted generous contracts to Police Chief Jeff Jaran in 2008 and 2011 that could end up costing the town hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to a series of emails released by the Board of Selectmen. Jaran was fired in December 2013 for urging his
An arbitration panel found former Provincetown Police Chief Jeff Jaran should only have been suspended without pay for a year, not fired, after he held a mandatory meeting at the police station during which he urged his staff to support Selectman Austin Knight in the May 2013 election. By KC Meyers | Cape Cod Times PROVINCETOWN — An arbitration panel has found that former Police
By Jim Russell | MassLive SOUTH HADLEY — Next month’s annual town meeting includes a $160,000 request to fund a claim resulting from the wrongful termination of a police officer. The matter involves South Hadley police officer Mark Sowell. According to court records, he was fired by the town, but an arbitrator determined in October 2010 that Sowell was wrongly terminated. South Hadley officials at
By Stephanie Barry | MassLive BOSTON – While the prosecution of former Springfield police officer Jeffrey Asher focused on a chaotic, violent clash between Asher and motorist Melvin Jones III, the former patrolman’s appeal of his criminal conviction will be decided largely on academics. Asher, convicted of assault and assault with a dangerous weapon in connection with a 2009 traffic stop during which he beat
By Mike Gaffney | WickedLocal Jim Rivers, the town’s director of information technology, has accused former Town Manager Scott Crabtree of asking him to delete all documents and emails from his town-issued computer. Rivers met with the Board of Selectmen last Wednesday to discuss a personnel complaint he brought regarding Crabtree, who the selectmen fired on Oct. 29. On Sept. 12 Rivers said Crabtree directed
By Mike Gaffney | WickedLocal Scott Crabtree is out as Saugus town manager. The Board of Selectmen voted 4-1 last Wednesday to adopt with good cause a final resolution for the removal of Crabtree as town manager. Selectman Debra Panetta cast the lone vote against the motion. Crabtree had requested a public hearing in the wake of the board’s 4-1 vote Sept. 15 to support
The Worcester, Massachusetts law firm of Reardon, Joyce & Akerson, P.C. announces that, for the sixth time, Andrew J. Gambaccini, an associate with the firm, has been selected as a Massachusetts Rising Star by Law and Politics Media, Inc. The award follows a rigorous, multi-phased process of review and is limited to attorneys under the age of forty who have been members of the bar
